Teaching Company history videos - are they interesting?

[pbjmeyer]

On another thread, these TTC videos were mentioned. I went to the site to see more detail, and the only review by a mom was that the teacher did not make the video information interesting.

Has anyone else used these? Can you comment?

 

Is the information too advanced for a 7th grader (12 years old?).

 

TTC or TC= The Teaching Company

www.teach12.com

[Sharon in MD]

I think that most of us who use TTC videos are using them for high school students. I did use the Civil War series when my son was in between 7th and 8th over the summer. He liked them for the most part, but found the non-battle or not specifically war oriented lectures tedious. For example the lecture on the economic policies was totally dull while the lecture on 1st Manassas was grand.

 

Most TTC videos are lectures by college profs who are considered to be among the best in their given fields. There are also some that are specifically high school teachers. Those would almost certainly not be too advanced for the bright 7th grader.

 

We have also used the math ones by Ed Burger....he is interesting at any age.

You might want to see if you can borrow some from your library before you invest. We mostly borrow them here.

[Mandy in TN]

Short answer- some are.:tongue_smilie:

 

For a young student some will be more appropriate than others.

 

If you look under high school courses, the 2 history courses by Linwood Thompson definitely have reviews by mothers.

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=132

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=131

 

These two and The Joy of Science are ones that I seem to see used the most with younger students.

 

There are high school lectures, but most of the courses are college level. I would think that if a 7th grader had a strong interest in a particular subject that some of these courses could work. However, I would think that as far as just basic instruction for a 7th grader that many of the courses would be too much.

 

Just my thoughts-

Mandy

[Faithr]

Which histories are you refering to? I have used TTC Foundations of Western Civ, Military and Social history of WWII (I think that's the title; I'm too lazy to check!) and The American Identity (currently using to supplement American history). I think it depends on several things: 1) How attentive or interested is your 7th grader? When my oldest dd was in 8th grade and my oldest ds was in 7th, we watched the WWII lectures. It is a LOT of detailed information and it assumes some past knowledge which we didn't have. However, my 7th grader was fascinated by the subject matter and still got loads out of it, while my 8th grader dd didn't care for it much and didn't retain much. So this leads to 2) If you don't care that they won't learn everything in the lectures but will just get a good exposure to a lot of complex analysis then it can work; but if you are expecting them to learn everything AT A COLLEGE lelvel, you might find it frustrating. And 3) because these are college courses, the professors talk about sex. They often just include it pretty casually or just in referring to it in whatever way it plays into the history, but you might learn about people have mistresses, etc, etc.

 

I have not tried the high school level courses, so they might be much more appropriate for your 7th grader.

[Brindee]

We have the Early American History with Linwood Thompson. My boys did this 3 years ago with they were in 6th and 9th grades. There are questions that go along with each "lecture" that were a bit much for the 6th grader, but they both LOVED the series! Prof Thompson makes it VERY interesting!

 

My dd, who will be in 7th next year, specifically asked to do this for history next year, as she remember thinking they looked so interesting (she was in 4th grade then). So, along with books on that era that we'll get from the library, that will be her history this coming year.

 

This is the only series we've done from TTC, but we really like it! I'm guessing that if your ds likes history, he'll enjoy this! Then you'd have to make the choice on whether to do those pages that go along with it or just discuss it for comprehension. My boys would have those sheets right in front of them as they watched, and write the info. down as they came to it. It helped them remember stuff well, but my dd and I may just discuss it. I'll have to see how it goes.

[Kareni]

For more reviews of Teaching Company courses, you might also find it worth your while to join the Yahoo group Teaching_company_fans and read through old postings. A number of different courses have been discussed there.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Jane in NC]

My son thinks Philip Daileader (assorted history courses of the middle ages) walks on water. Granted, many students may not want to sit through hours and hours of lectures on the early, high and late middle ages, but those who are interested in this time period may be as enchanted as my future historian/archaeologist.

 

He has enjoyed other history lecturers too (Noble and Fagan come to mind) but Daileader is by far his favorite.

 

Your seventh grader may not be ready for all of these, but they are wonderful for high school students!

 

Jane

[Starr]

My 7th grader has enjoyed science dvds and recently the Iliad lectures.

[Kathy in MD]

I agree that TTC courses generally should only be used if the child has a strong interest in a subject. My ds's passion is history and he, though not academically inclined, enjoyed 2 of the courses in the 7th grade. Astonishingly, he didn't like the high school history series. He thought they were boring, I thought they were light and good to introduce the period, but no more.

 

But ds didn't like the individual lectures in other subjects I had him watch.